Category: Leadership

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Teaching Innovation in Routine Schools?

Tough Choices or Tough Times
Tough Choices or Tough Times

On December 14, 2006,  the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, unveiled a report which should keep educators and policy-makers talking for months to come. Tough Choices or Tough Times, offers both a sober assessment of the challenge (Tough Times) and a radical proposal for reform of our educational system (Tough Choices). Executive Report  1.9MB pdf

Already the report is drawing both praise and heavy criticism. See: “U.S. Urged to Reinvent Its Schools” Education Week December 20, 2006. More 35kb pdf

The report assesses the demands of the information age / global economy against the current trends in American education. In our efforts to shore up the basic competencies of our students we have sacrificed creativity. Our schools have been taken over by the “test-prep” mentality. Typically that involves putting our student through relentless repetition of formulaic approaches to finding “the right answer.” More

As Washington considers the reauthorization of NCLB, I hope someone asks the question, “Why are we training our students to perform routine tasks, when routine work is increasingly done by machines and low-wage labor?”

As Tough Choices or Tough Times states, “A swiftly rising number of American workers at every skill level are in direct competition with workers in every corner of the globe. …If someone can figure out the algorithm for a routine job, chances are that it is economic to automate it. Many good well-paying, middle-class jobs involve routine work of this kind and are rapidly being automated.
…The best employers the world over will be looking for the most competent, most creative, and most innovative people  on the face of the earth and will be willing to pay them top dollar for their services. This will be true not just for the top professionals and managers, but up and down the length and breadth of the workforce.
…Strong skills in English, mathematic: technology and science, as well as literature, history, and the arts will be essential for many; beyond this, candidates will have to be comfortable with ideas and abstractions, good at both analysis and synthesis, creative and innovative, self-disciplined and well organized, able to learn very quickly and work well as a member of a team and have the flexibility to adapt quickly to frequent changes in the labor market as the shifts in the economy become ever faster and more dramatic.”

To prepare our students to lead productive and fulfilling lives, they will need both core competencies and opportunities to explore creative solutions that are “outside the box.” Let’s not forget “synthesis” – one of Bloom’s higher-order thinking skills. It’s been defined as: “Creatively or divergently applying prior knowledge and skills to produce a new or original whole.”

We can’t blame teachers for abandoning project-based learning when they get the message that we have to get “the scores up.” It’s time to refine our thinking about educational accountability.  We will need to produce a new generation of students with both solid skills and the ability to apply them in new and creative ways.

As the report concludes, “Creativity, innovation, and flexibility will not be the special province of an elite. It will be demanded of virtually everyone who is making a decent living, from graphic artists to assembly line workers, from insurance brokers to home builders.”

See new post “Teaching innovation in routine schools? Part II”

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Essential Skills for Today’s School Leaders

North Carolina's Principals’ Executive Program (PEP), is the first and longest-running program of its kind in the United States. PEP is an excellent example of how rigorous, research-based training in modern leadership techniques and instructional strategies can improve teaching and learning in America’s public schools.

I am pleased to be one of the speakers at PEP's 2006 Statewide Leadership Conference “Essential Skills for Today’s School Leaders.” 

Rigor, Relevance and Content Reading Strategies
Download pappas-rigor-NC-PEP.pdf PPT Handout 3.6 MB pdf   
Download PeterPappas-rigor-relevance.WMA  2 hour Audio 30MB wma
This session demonstrates how educators can boost achievement with a consistent focus on common instructional strategies in a student-centered classroom. The presentation includes practical examples of how school leaders can support content mastery and build student literacy skills in vocabulary, comprehension and analysis. For more information visit my site Content Reading Strategies that Work
In this session we used my TurningPoint audience response system to gather feedback and guide our discussion. TurningPoint can produce a variety of reports and can even track results by individual responder. Want to know more about TurningPoint response systems? Contact Mike Venrose at mvenrose@turningtechnologies.com

Publishing – Academic Success for Struggling Readers and Writers
Download pappas-publish-NC-PEP.pdf PPT Handout 3.5 MB pdf 
Download PeterPappas-digital-publishing.WMA 1 hour Audio  14MB wma
This session offers examples of publishing programs that have successfully helped struggling readers and writers, strategies for incorporating publishing workshops into your school's curriculum, and simple technology tips that produce good results. For more information visit my site Read > Think > Write > Publish

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Proficient readers may not be proficient writers

Educators have focused on developing reading programs with the assumption that reading and writing are complementary skills.

Writing Next, a recent report by Carnegie Corporation states, “Writing is sometimes seen as the ‘flip side’ of reading. It is often assumed that adolescents who are proficient readers must be proficient writers, too. If this were the case, then helping students learn to read better would naturally lead to the same students writing well. However, although reading and writing are complementary skills whose development runs a roughly parallel course, they do not necessarily go hand in hand. Many adolescents are able to handle average reading demands but have severe difficulties with writing. Moreover, the nature of the relationship between reading and writing skills changes over time (Fitzgerald & Shanahan, 2000). Researchers know that reading and writing often draw from the same pool of background knowledge—for example, a general understanding of the attributes of texts. At the same time, however, writing differs from reading. While readers form a mental representation of thoughts written by someone else, writers formulate their own thoughts, organize them, and create a written record of them using the conventions of spelling and grammar.”  Full report here 1.4 MB pdf

New digital technologies give students the opportunity to publish high-quality books under the guidance of their teachers. I am promoting digital publishing at conferences, school-based training and my website Read > Think > Write > Publish. The power of publishing enables students to think like writers, to apply their learning strategies and to organize and express their learning.

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Are students well prepared to meet the challenges of the future?

Try a sample PISA question on my update post: 
“Stop Worrying About Shanghai, What PISA Test Really Tells Us About American Students”

Are they able to analyze, reason and communicate their ideas effectively? Do they have the capacity to continue learning throughout life? Or have schools been forced to sacrifice learning for “adequate yearly progress” on state tests?

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) provides some answers to those questions and offers an insight into the type of problem solving that rarely turns up on state testing. PISA is an assessment (begun in 2000) that focuses on 15-year-olds’ capabilities in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy. PISA studied students in 41 countries and assessed how well prepared students are for life beyond the classroom by focusing on the application of knowledge and skills to problems with a real-life context. PISA website

NCLB has narrowed our curriculum and forced many schools into the test prep mode. PISA offers a better picture of the independent thinking and problem solving our student will need to be successful. PISA defines problem solving as “an individual’s capacity to use cognitive processes to confront and resolve real, cross-disciplinary situations where the solution is not immediately obvious… and where the literacy domains or curricular areas that might be applicable are not within a single domain of mathematics, science, or reading.”

A competitive workforce is made up of people who can think independently in complex and ambiguous situations where the solutions are not immediately obvious.  Educators need resources and training to craft a rigorous learning environment where students can function as 21st century professionals – critical thinkers who can effectively collaborate to gather, evaluate, analyze and share information.  You can download PISA sample questions, answers and comparative data:
Executive report 3.4MB pdf
Mathematics items 534KB pdf
Mathematics scoring guide and international benchmarks 624KB pdf
Science items 503KB pdf
Science scoring guide and international benchmarks 461KB pdf
Reading items 835KB pdf
Reading scoring guide and international benchmarks 923KB pdf

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“Strategies for Student Success” Oregon Summer Institute

This past week I traveled to Portland Oregon to present four workshops at the 2006 Superintendent’s Statewide Conference sponsored by the Oregon Department of Education.  More on the conference.  Each workshop considered Rigor, Relevance and Literacy from a different perspective. In two sessions we used my TurningPoint audience response system to gather feedback and guide our discussion. TurningPoint can produce a variety of reports and can even track results by individual responder. Want to know more about TurningPoint response systems? Contact Mike Venrose at mvenrose@turningtechnologies.com

For each I’ve uploaded a PowerPoint handout and audio podcast of the presentation.

Rigor, Relevance and Reading for Struggling to Average Readers
RealPlayer Video rmvb 50 minutes    PPT Handout 1.4MB pdf    Audio 14MB wma 65 minutes
Boost student achievement with rigor, relevance and literacy strategies for academic success. Designed for high school teachers of all disciplines, the session demonstrated that teachers don't have to sacrifice content or become a reading teacher. Teachers found out how to support their subject area while building student literacy skills in defining and summarizing. For a more – Content Reading Strategies that Work 

Rigor, Relevance and Reading for High Performing Students
PPT Handout 1.6MB pdf    Audio 18MB wma 65 minutes
Designed for honors / AP level teachers who think that an engaging learning environment is more than an inspired lecture. Learn strategies to enable your students to read, reflect, and write like historians, scientists, mathematicians, and literary critics. Teachers found out how to support subject area mastery while building student literacy skills in defining, summarizing and analysis. We used an audience response system by TurningPoint. For a more – Content Reading Strategies that Work 

9th Grade Academy – A Small Learning Community that Works
RealPlayer Video  rmvb 55 minutes    Audio 11MB wma 65 minutes
Boost student achievement with rigor, relevance and literacy strategies for academic success. This workshop traced the success of the ninth grade academy at East Irondequoit CSD, an inner-ring suburb of Rochester NY. High standards, parent partnerships and assessment driven instruction are helping teachers of all disciplines support their subject area while building student literacy skills. We used an audience response system by TurningPoint. For more- Small Learning Communities that Work

Publishing – Academic Success for Struggling Readers and Writers
RealPlayer Video  rmvb 55 minutes    PPT Handout 1.6MB pdf    Audio 14MB wma 65 minutes
This workshop showcased examples of successful programs that have motivated struggling readers and writers.  The power of publishing enables students to think like writers, to apply their learning strategies and to organize and express their learning. Participants will also learned simple technology tips that produce great results. For a more – Read / Think / Write / Publish